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157 Cards in this Set

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Prose
Any material that is not written in a regular meter like poetry. Many modern genres such as short stories, novels, letters, essays, and treatises are typically written in prose.
Fiction
A story that is made-up.
Short Story
"A brief prose tale," as Edgar Allan Poe labeled it. This work of narrative fiction may contain description, dialogue and commentary, but usually plot functions as the engine driving the art. The best short stories, according to Poe, seek to achieve a single, major, unified impact.
Novel
In its broadest sense, a novel is any extended fictional prose narrative focusing on a few primary characters but often involving scores of secondary characters. The fact that it is in prose helps distinguish it from other lengthy works like epics
Exposition
The use of authorial discussion to explain or summarize background material rather than revealing this information through gradual narrative detail. Often, this technique is considered unartful, especially when creative writers contrast showing (revelation through details) and telling (exposition). For example, a writer might use exposition by writing, "Susan was angry when she left the house and climbed into her car outside." That sentence is telling the reader about Susan, i.e., using exposition. In contrast, the writer might change this to the following version. "Red-faced with nostrils flaring, Susan slammed the door and stomped over to her car outside." Now, the writer is showing Susan's anger, rather than using exposition to tell the audience she's angry.
Conflict
The opposition between two characters (such as a protagonist and an antagonist), between two large groups of people, or between the protagonist and a larger problem such as forces of nature, ideas, public mores, and so on. Conflict may also be completely internal, such as the protagonist struggling with his psychological tendencies (drug addiction, self-destructive behavior, and so on); William Faulkner famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of "the human heart in conflict with itself." Conflict is the engine that drives a plot.
Climax
The turning point of uncertainty and tension resulting from earlier conflict in a plot. At the moment of crisis in a story, it is unclear if the protagonist will succeed or fail in his struggle. The crisis usually leads to or overlaps with the climax of a story, though some critics use the two terms synonymously.
Resolution
A French word meaning "unknotting" or "unwinding," denouement refers to the outcome or result of a complex situation or sequence of events, an aftermath or resolution that usually occurs near the final stages of the plot. It is the unraveling of the main dramatic complications in a play, novel or other work of literature. In drama, the term is usually applied to tragedies or to comedies with catastrophes in their plot. This resolution usually takes place in the final chapter or scene, after the climax is over. Usually the denouement ends as quickly as the writer can arrange it--for it occurs only after all the conflicts have been resolved.
Protaganist
The main character in a work, on whom the author focuses most of the narrative attention.
Antagonist
the character against whom the protagonist struggles or contends
Foil
A character that serves by contrast to highlight or emphasize opposing traits in another character.
Internal
Internal conflict is the dilemma facing the character inside and its impact on that character. Writers typically choose internal conflicts that arouse a universal emotion in people, whether it's inner need, desire, belief, or turmoil.
External
Internal conflict adds meaning and complexity to the external conflict, but it's the external conflict that forces a character to make internal choices and changes. And the key to a story’s tension is that a character has choices to make. Which will it be? What will be the fallout? For readers to care about a story the choices and the resolution must have consequences for the main character
Person vs. Person
a conflict where one person has a problem with another person; good buy vs. bad guy; there can be more than one antagonist
Person vs. Enviroment
: A conflict where the main character has to fight against the environment. Also called person vs. nature. Includes things like surviving in the wilderness, fighting against a tornado, flood, wild animals, etc.
Person vs. Technology
A conflict where the main character has a conflict against something technological such as computers, robots, computer virus, etc.
Person vs. Society
A conflict where the main character has a conflict against society, against social tradition, government, or “the way things have always been done”
Person vs. Supernatural
a theme in literature that places a character against supernatural forces.
Character
Any representation of an individual being presented in a dramatic or narrative work through extended dramatic or verbal representation. The reader can interpret characters as endowed with moral and dispositional qualities expressed in what they say (dialogue) and what they do (action).
Static/Developing Character
A static character is a simplified character who does not change or alter his or her personality over the course of a narrative. Such static characters are also called flat characters if they have little visible personality or if the author provides little characterization for them. The term is used in contrast with a round or dynamic character.
Round/Flat Character
A round character is depicted with such psychological depth and detail that he or she seems like a "real" person. The round character contrasts with the flat character, a character who serves a specific or minor literary function in a text, and who may be a stock character or simplified stereotype. If the round character changes or evolves over the course of a narrative or appears to have the capacity for such change, the character is also dynamic. Typically, a short story has one round character and several flat ones. However, in longer novels and plays, there may be many round characters.
Character's Words & Thoughts
The thoughts running through the character’s mind and his/her speech towards other people.
Character's Apperance
Is the character describe as ugly, handsome, etc
Character's Action
Is the character depressed, shy, or outgoing?
View of other characters
Does the character like, love, hate, despise the other characters in the story?
Setting
The general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of a fictional or dramatic work occurs; the setting of an episode or scene within a work is the particular physical location in which it takes place
Point of View
The way a story gets told and who tells it. It is the method of narration that determines the position, or angle of vision, from which the story unfolds. Point of view governs the reader's access to the story.
First Person
The narrator speaks as "I" and the narrator is a character in the story who may or may not influence events within it.
Third Person
The narrator seems to be someone standing outside the story who refers to all the characters by name or as he, she, they, and so on.
Objective Point of View
When the narrator reports speech and action, but never comments on the thoughts of other characters, it is the dramatic third person point of view
Third Person Omniscient
a narrator who knows everything that needs to be known about the agents and events in the story, and is free to move at will in time and place, and who has privileged access to a character's thoughts, feelings, and motives.
Third Person Limited
a narrator who is confined to what is experienced, thought, or felt by a single character, or at most a limited number of characters.
Unreliable Narrator
a narrator who describes events in the story, but seems to make obvious mistakes or misinterpretations that may be apparent to a careful reader.
Theme
A central idea or statement that unifies and controls an entire literary work. The theme can take the form of a brief and meaningful insight or a comprehensive vision of life; it may be a single idea such as "progress" (in many Victorian works), "order and duty" (in many early Roman works), "seize-the-day" (in many late Roman works), or "jealousy" (in Shakespeare's Othello).
Tone
The means of creating a relationship or conveying an attitude or mood. By looking carefully at the choices an author makes (in characters, incidents, setting; in the work's stylistic choices and diction, etc.), careful readers often can isolate the tone of a work and sometimes infer from it the underlying attitudes that control and color the story or poem as a whole. The tone might be formal or informal, playful, ironic, optimistic, pessimistic, or sensual.
Symbolism
Frequent use of words, places, characters, or objects that mean something beyond what they are on a literal level. Often the symbol may be ambiguous in meaning. When multiple objects or characters each seem to have a restricted symbolic meaning, what often results is an allegory.
Allegory
The word derives from the Greek allegoria ("speaking otherwise"). The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning. This narrative acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on the literal level, but they also stand for something else on the symbolic level. An allegorical reading usually involves moral or spiritual concepts that may be more significant than the actual, literal events described in a narrative. Typically, an allegory involves the interaction of multiple symbols, which together create a moral, spiritual, or even political meaning.
Metaphor
A comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking. When we speak of "the ladder of success," we imply that being successful is much like climbing a ladder to a higher and better position.
Similie
An analogy or comparison implied by using an adverb such as like or as, in contrast with a metaphor which figuratively makes the comparison by stating outright that one thing is another thing. This figure of speech is of great antiquity. It is common in both prose and verse works.
Irony
saying one thing and meaning another
Suspense
The state or quality of being undecided, uncertain, or doubtful; Pleasurable excitement and anticipation regarding an outcome, such as the ending of a mystery novel; Anxiety or apprehension resulting from an uncertain, undecided, or mysterious situation.
Foreshadowing
Suggesting, hinting, indicating, or showing what will occur later in a narrative.
Flashback
A method of narration in which present action is temporarily interrupted so that the reader can witness past events--usually in the form of a character's memories, dreams, narration, or even authorial commentary
Poetry
A variable literary genre characterized by rhythmical patterns of language.
Narrative Poetry
poetry that has a plot. The poems may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be simple or complex. It is usually no dramatic, with objective regular scheme and meter.
Dramatic Poetry
the poet lets one or more of the story's characters act out the story. Many plays are written as dramatic poetry.
Epic Poetry
ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.
Lyric Poetry
: a form of poetry with rhyming schemes that express personal feelings. It need not, but can, be set to music.
Sonnet
A lyric poem of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to certain definite patterns. It usually expresses a single, complete idea or thought with a reversal, twist, or change of direction in the concluding lines.
Haiku
: consists of three lines. The first line contains five syllables, the second line contains seven, and the last line five
Figurative Language
A deviation from what speakers of a language understand as the ordinary or standard use of words in order to achieve some special meaning or effect.
Foot
A basic unit of meter consisting of a set number of strong stresses and light stresses.
Personification
A trope in which abstractions, animals, ideas, and inanimate objects are given human character, traits, abilities, or reactions.
Onomatopoeia
The use of sounds that are similar to the noise they represent for a rhetorical or artistic effect. For instance, buzz, click, rattle, and grunt make sounds akin to the noise they represent.
Hyperbole
the trope of exaggeration or overstatement.
Alliteration
Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel sound.
Assonance
Repeating identical or similar vowels (especially in stressed syllabes) in nearby words
Consonance
: A special type of alliteration in which the repeated pattern of consonants is marked by changes in the intervening vowels--i.e.
Rhyme
a matching similarity of sounds in two or more words, especially when their accented vowels and all succeeding consonants are identical.
Slant Rhyme
Rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa.
Exact Rhyme
perfect rhyme is rhyming two words in which both the consonant sounds and vowel sounds match to create a rhyme.
Rhythm
The varying speed, loudness, pitch, elevation, intensity, and expressiveness of speech, especially poetry.
Meter
A recognizable though varying pattern of stressed syllables alternating with syllables of less stress.
Iambic Pentameter
five feet, with each foot tending to be a light syllable followed by heavy syllable
Blank Verse
Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents
Free Verse
Poetry based on the natural rhythms of phrases and normal pauses rather than the artificial constraints of metrical feet
Stanza
An arrangement of lines of verse in a pattern usually repeated throughout the poem.
Couplet
: A unit of verse consisting of two successive lines, usually rhyming and having the same meter and often forming a complete thought or syntactic unit.
Refrain
: A line or set of lines at the end of a stanza or section of a longer poem or song--these lines repeat at regular intervals in other stanzas or sections of the same work.
Drama
A composition in prose or verse presenting, in pantomime and dialogue, a narrative involving conflict between a character or characters and some external or internal force.
Stage Direction
: Sometimes abbreviated "s.d.," the term in drama refers to part of the printed text in a play that is not actually spoken by actors on stage, but which instead indicates actions or activity for the actors to engage in.
Dialogue
The lines spoken by a character or characters in a play, essay, story, or novel, especially a conversation between two characters, or a literary work that takes the form of such a discussion.
Monologue
An interior monologue does not necessarily represent spoken words, but rather the internal or emotional thoughts or feelings of an individual.
Soliloquy
: A monologue spoken by an actor at a point in the play when the character believes himself to be alone. The technique frequently reveals a character's innermost thoughts, including his feelings, state of mind, motives or intentions.
Aside
In drama, a few words or a short passage spoken by one character to the audience while the other actors on stage pretend their characters cannot hear the speaker's words.
Pun
A play on two words similar in sound but different in meaning.
Prologue
In original Greek tragedy, the prologue was either the action or a set of introductory speeches before the first entry (parados) of the chorus. Here, a single actor's monologue or a dialogue between two actors would establish the play's background events. (2) In later literature, a prologue is a section of any introductory material before the first chapter or the main material of a prose work, or any such material before the first stanza of a poetic work.
Epilogue
A conclusion added to a literary work such as a novel, play, or long poem. It is the opposite of a prologue.
NonFiction
: A story that is true.
Biography
A non-fictional account of a person's life--usually a celebrity, an important historical figure, or a writer.
AutoBiography
A non-fictional account of a person's life--usually a celebrity, an important historical figure, or a writer--written by that actual person.
Personal Essay
A story about events that occurred which affected the writer.
Journal
A daily log about their feelings, or describing how their day has been going.
Essay
exposing their true self to others as a form of relief from what they have been holding inside.
Narrative
The person talking or retelling the event that occurred.
Descriptive
The person talking or retelling the event that occurred.
Persuasive
the readers to understand their point of view or opinion on certain topics.
Epic
An epic in its most specific sense is a genre of classical poetry. It is a poem that is (a) a long narrative about a serious subject, (b) told in an elevated style of language, (c) focused on the exploits of a hero or demi-god who represents the cultural values of a race, nation, or religious group (d) in which the hero's success or failure will determine the fate of that people or nation. Usually, the epic has (e) a vast setting, and covers a wide geographic area, (f) it contains superhuman feats of strength or military prowess, and gods or supernatural beings frequently take part in the action. The poem begins with (g) the invocation of a muse to inspire the poet and, (h) the narrative starts in medias res (see above). (i) The epic contains long catalogs of heroes or important characters, focusing on highborn kings and great warriors rather than peasants and commoners.
Epic Hero
The central figure in a long narrative who possess larger -than-life qualities such as bravery, loyalty, and heroism.
Myth
is a traditional tale of deep cultural significance to a people in terms of etiology, eschatology, ritual practice, or models of appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
Satire
An attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards.
Idiom
An attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards.
Fable
An attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards.
Parable
An attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards.
Denotation
An attack on or criticism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards.
Connotation
The extra tinge or taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary. For instance, the terms civil war, revolution and rebellion have the same denotation
Subjectivity
The extra tinge or taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary. For instance, the terms civil war, revolution and rebellion have the same denotation
Objectivity
The extra tinge or taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary. For instance, the terms civil war, revolution and rebellion have the same denotation
Denoucement
The extra tinge or taint of meaning each word carries beyond the minimal, strict definition found in a dictionary. For instance, the terms civil war, revolution and rebellion have the same denotation
Epiphany
Christian thinkers used this term to signify a manifestation of God's presence in the world.
Voice
Shows the writer’s personality.
Allusion
A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification.
Narrator
The "voice" that speaks or tells a story.
Reliable Narrator
The "voice" that speaks or tells a story.
Unreliable Narrator
a storyteller who "misses the point" of the events or things he describes in a story, who plainly misinterprets the motives or actions of characters, or who fails to see the connections between events in the story. The author
Intrusive Narrator
a storyteller who "misses the point" of the events or things he describes in a story, who plainly misinterprets the motives or actions of characters, or who fails to see the connections between events in the story. The author
Tragedy
A serious play in which the chief character, by some peculiarity of psychology, passes through a series of misfortunes leading to a final, devastating catastrophe.
Tragic Hero
A serious play in which the chief character, by some peculiarity of psychology, passes through a series of misfortunes leading to a final, devastating catastrophe.
Tragic Flaw
a misperception, a lack of some important insight, or some blindness that ironically results from one's own strengths and abilities.
Pathos
writer or speaker's attempt to inspire an emotional reaction in an audience--usually a deep feeling of suffering, but sometimes joy, pride, anger, humor, patriotism, or any of a dozen other emotions.
Picaresque
A humorous novel in which the plot consists of a young knave's misadventures and escapades narrated in comic or satiric scenes.
Bildungsroman
”; A novel in which an adolescent protagonist comes to adulthood by a process of experience and disillusionment.
Stream of consciousness
Writing in which a character's perceptions, thoughts, and memories are presented in an apparently random form, without regard for logical sequence, chronology, or syntax.
Grotesque
giving a reader an idea of what will happen far before it happens.
American Dream
art that expresses optimistic desires for self-improvement, freedom, and self-sufficiency
Romanticism
rejected the earlier philosophy of the Enlightenment, which stressed that logic and reason were the best response humans had in the face of cruelty, stupidity, superstition, and barbarism
Realism
First, it refers generally to any artistic or literary portrayal of life in a faithful, accurate manner, unclouded by false ideals, literary conventions, or misplaced aesthetic glorification and beautification of the world. It is a theory or tendency in writing to depict events in human life in a matter-of-fact, straightforward manner. It is an attempt to reflect life "as it actually is"--a concept in some ways similar to what the Greeks would call mimesis.
Naturalism
A literary movement seeking to depict life as accurately as possible, without artificial distortions of emotion, idealism, and literary convention.
Literary Criticism
The analysis of literary works.
Deconstrcution
rejects absolute interpretations, stressing ambiguities and contradictions in literature.
Active Voice
One of the two “voices” of verbs. When the verb of a sentence is in the active voice, the subject is doing the acting, as in the sentence “Kevin hit the ball.” Kevin (the subject of the sentence) acts in relation to the ball.
Passive Voice
One of the two “voices” of verbs. A verb is in the passive voice when the subject of the sentence is acted on by the verb.
anaphora
The intentional repetition of beginning clauses in order to create an artistic effect
Archetype
An original model or pattern from which other later copies are made, especially a character, an action, or situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life.
Aside
In drama, a few words or a short passage spoken by one character to the audience while the other actors on stage pretend their characters cannot hear the speaker's words. It is a theatrical convention that the aside is not audible to other characters on stage.
Authorial Intrusion
Have you ever read a book where the author suddenly jolted you out of the storyline with a comment that just doesn't flow with the rest of the work?
Casesura
A pause separating phrases within lines of poetry--an important part of poetic rhythm. The term caesura comes from the Latin "a cutting" or "a slicing."
Catharsis
An emotional discharge that brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety.
Close Reading
: Reading a piece of literature carefully, bit by bit, in order to analyze the significance of every individual word, image, and artistic ornament.
Colloquial
A word or phrase used everyday in plain and relaxed speech, but rarely found in formal writing.
Comedy
In the original meaning of the word, comedy referred to a genre of drama during the Dionysia festivals of ancient Athens.
Conceit
An elaborate or unusual comparison--especially one using unlikely metaphors, simile, hyperbole, and contradiction.
Deus ex Machina
An unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonists or resolve the story's conflict. The term means "The god out of the machine," and it refers to stage machinery.
Diction
An unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonists or resolve the story's conflict. The term means "The god out of the machine," and it refers to stage machinery.
Formal/High Diction
Involves elaborate, technical, or polysyllabic vocabulary and careful attention to the proprieties of grammar
Informal Diction
Involves conversational or familiar language, contractions, slang, elision, and grammatical errors designed to convey a relaxed tone.
Neutral
Uses standard language and vocabulary without elaborate words and may include contractions.
Dramatic Monologue
A poem in which a poetic speaker addresses either the reader or an internal listener at length.
End Rhyme
A poem in which a poetic speaker addresses either the reader or an internal listener at length.
Enjabement
A poem in which a poetic speaker addresses either the reader or an internal listener at length.
Epithet
A short, poetic nickname--often in the form of an adjective or adjectival phrase--attached to the normal name.
Euphemism
Using a mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt, embarrassing, or painful one.
frame story
The result of inserting one or more small stories within the body of a larger story that encompasses the smaller ones. Often this term is used interchangeably with both the literary technique and the larger story itself that contains the smaller ones, which are called pericopes, "framed narratives" or "embedded narratives.
Genre
A type or category of literature or film marked by certain shared features or conventions.
Iamb
A unit or foot of poetry that consists of a lightly stressed syllable followed by a heavily stressed syllable.
Idiom
In its loosest sense, the word idiom is often used as a synonym for dialect or idiolect. In its more scholarly and narrow sense, an idiom or idiomatic expression refers to a construction or expression in one language that cannot be matched or directly translated word-for-word in another language.
Imagery
: A common term of variable meaning, imagery includes the "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature.
Internal Ryhme
A poetic device in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end of the same metrical line. Internal rhyme appears in the first and third lines
Juxtaposition
The arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development.
Kenning
. In this poetic device, the poet creates a new compound word or phrase to describe an object or activity.
Metonymy
. In this poetic device, the poet creates a new compound word or phrase to describe an object or activity.
Mood
. In this poetic device, the poet creates a new compound word or phrase to describe an object or activity.
Octave
set of eight line
Ode
A long, often elaborate stanzaic poem of varying line lengths and sometimes intricate rhyme schemes dealing with a serious subject matter and treating it reverently.
Paradox
Using contradiction in a manner that oddly makes sense on a deeper level.
Parallelism
When the writer establishes similar patterns of grammatical structure and length.
Parapharse
A brief restatement in one's own words of all or part of a literary or critical work, as opposed to quotation, in which one reproduces all or part of a literary or critical work word-for-word, exactly.